Imagine if your mother, your best friend, your child, needed a stem cell or bone marrow transplant but could not find a genetic match?

All because too few South Asians, just 6,000, have registered with the OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network even though there are over a million of us living in Canada now!

Not only do we have a far lower chance of finding a matching donor for a potentially life-saving transplant than a Caucasian patient, we also have the highest number of people waiting for a match among all minorities.

What can you do to change the odds?

Join Now!If you are between the ages of 17-35, visitOneMatch.ca to fill out a health questionnaire. If you are in good health, they will mail you a set of cotton swabs. Take a DNA sample from inside your cheek (just like on CSI), put the swabs back into a special envelope and send it back. It’s free and easy.

Spread the word. Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and send an email about the cause to your friends and family, colleagues and peers. Help us hold registration clinics in your community.

Educate. The majority of transplants take place through the collection of stem cells -not bone marrow. The process is similar to giving blood through a vein. Your stem cells regenerate within weeks.

There are no long-term effects of being donor – except that feeling of knowing that you helped someone out! We can and will change the odds!